35 Questions from the Community

I own a mac book pro early 2011 which does not have a thunderbolt 2, but the earlier thunderbolt port. It also only has usb 2.0 ports. I want to connect to a usb 3 hard drive and a display so am looking for a thunderbolt hub with both usb 3 and thunderbolt. Will this do the job?

Yes, the Belkin product page for this dock specifically mentions both Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt 2 compatibility.

You should be able to use any Thunderbolt 3, Thunderbolt 2, or Thunderbolt 1 dock with the MacBook Pro 2011.

Thunderbolt 1 and Thunderbolt 2 use the same cables.

A Thunderbolt 3 dock requires an Apple Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter and a Thunderbolt 2 cable. It may also require a Thunderbolt 3 enabler software patch "tb3-enabler" if System Information.app says the device is unsupported.

Note that Thunderbolt only allows up to 10 Gb/sec but that's still twice as fast as a USB 3.1 gen 1 port (5 Gb/sec). Thunderbolt 2 allows 20 Gb/sec. Thunderbolt 3 allows up to 40 Gb/sec.

I don't know of any Thunderbolt docks that have USB 3.1 gen 2 (10 Gb/sec). Many have USB 3.1 gen 1 (5 Gb/sec).

I have 2 monitors that I would like to attach to this device along with my macbook. One I can connect with an HDMI cord the other one is DVI so I'll have to use an adaptor. But according to the specs it doesn't support both. If that is the case how do I run 2 monitors in addition to my macbook?

I am in the process of setting up my home office and would need a docking station for my laptop to connect to a dual-monitor set up. in addition to that, I will have an external hard drive that will need to be connected. Will this product handle the capacity of a laptop, external hard drive, and 2 monitors?